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echolalia: a condition often found in autisticchildren and catatonic schizophrenics, whereby individuals demonstrate a pathological repetition of other’s words, either immediately or delayed for hours or days.
efficacy: the effectiveness of a treatment used in medicine or psychotherapy.
ego: (Latin for ‘I’) in psychoanalysis, the part of personality that serves to mediate between id and superego, by directing instinctual drives and urges into appropriate channels.
egocentricity: evident at the preoperational stage, whereby a young child is unable to take the perspective of another person. Piaget’s ‘three mountains’ experiment is a test of egocentricity, as children are unable to see how the ‘mountains’ would look to a child at a different location.
elaborative rehearsal:
the active processing of items to improve
memory, through a
variety of methods, from focusing on sensory characteristics
(visual appearance, sound) to an emphasis on the semantic
content (meaning) of information.
electroconvulsive
shock treatment (ECT):
the use of passing small amounts of electric current through
the
brain, inducing a convulsion or epileptic seizure, as an
effective treatment for severe
depression.
electroencephalograph
(EEG):
a
non-invasive method of recording the electrical activity of
the
brain,
by fixing electrodes to the scalp.
emancipation
(psychological):
The step by step development of the
personality of a self-reliant mature individual. All
good education guides towards mature self-reliance and
self-realisation.
emotion:
an pattern
of intense changes in
physiological
arousal, behavior,
cognitive processes and environmental influences that are
described in subjective terms such as happiness, fear or
anger.
emotion-focused coping:
aims to manage the negative effects of
stress on the individual, through
changing an
emotional response.
emotional development:
the development of a full range of emotions from sad to
happy to angry, and learning to deal with them
appropriately.
emotional state:
the state of a person’s
emotions (especially
with regard to pleasure or dejection).
empathy:
the ability
to understand another person’s
perceptions and feelings;
cited by
Rogers
as a condition for growth.
empirical data:
information derived from measurements made
in “real life” situations (eg, field data).
encoding:
changing sensory input into a mental representation in the
memory system.
endocrine glands:
glands which secrete
hormones
directly into the bloodstream.
endocrinologist: a specialist of the
endocrine glands and
hormone systems of the body. ie
pituitary gland,
adrenal gland, testes.
endogenous:caused by factors within the
body or mind or
arising from internal structural or
functional causes.
endogenous pacemakers:
inherited mechanisms important for the regulation of
biological rhythms, particularly in the absence of external
cues. The principal endogenous pacemaker in mammals is a
small group of cells in the
hypothalamus, known as the
suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which regulates the
production of melatonin in the pineal gland.
endorphins:
a
neuropeptide which plays an important role in pain and mood
states.
environmental stressors
(aggressive behaviour):
elements
of the environment that give rise to
anti-social behavior, by
increasing
arousal which subsequently may produce negative
emotions and
aggressive behavior. For instance, high
temperatures, intense levels of noise, and crowding can
produce high levels of
aggression.
episodic memory:
long-term memories for personal experiences and the contexts
in which they occur.
equilibration:
in
Piaget’s
theory of
cognitive development, maintaining balance
between the environment and the
mental structures (schemas)
which we use to represent that environment.
Erikson
(1902-1994):
psychoanalyst and proponent of
developmental psychology. Proposed eight stages of
psychosocial development from birth to death, for
instance identity vs. role confusion.
ergonomics:
the study
of the ‘fit’ between human operators and their workplace,
which can be used to design working environments that
maximise user efficiency.
estimator variables:
in witness testimony, variables that affect the accuracy of witness
testimony, that the justice system has little control over,
including weather and amount of time witness was at the
scene
ethical guidelines:
prescriptive guidance (e.g. clear guidelines published by the BPS) on the conduct of psychologists in research and practice, to oversee what is acceptable within the
pursuit of a specific goal, including informed consent, right to withdraw and debriefing.
ethical hedonism: the view that individuals engage in moral behaviour, such as altruism, because it provides some personal advantage.
ethics: a major branch of philosophy. The study of principles relating to right and wrong conduct; Morality; The standards that govern the conduct of a person, especially a member of
a profession.
ethnocentrism: the practice of researching or theorising from the perspective of a particular ethnic, national or cultural group.
euphoria: a feeling of happiness, confidence, or well-being sometimes exaggerated in mood disorders as mania.
evolutionary psychology:
the application of evolutionary ideas, including the
importance of behavioural and mental adaptiveness over
millions of years, to help explain human behaviour.
excitatory: that tends to
excite or causes excitation.
existential therapies:
see
humanistic therapies.
exogenous zeitgebers
(‘time givers’): external events that help regulate
biological rhythms, for instance, light and social
stimuli
(see also
endogenous pacemakers).
extraneous variables:
variables
that make possible an alternative explanation of results; an
uncontrolled variable.
expectancy/incentive approaches:
in the study of
motivation, these approaches explore
incentives
that produce goal-directed behaviour.
experiment:
a test under controlled conditions made to either demonstrate a known truth, examine
the validity of a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy of something previously untried.
experimental methods: systematically manipulate the independent variable to determine the effect upon the dependent variable. Extraneous variables that may influence the outcome of the experiment are rigorously controlled.
experimental group: participants in an experiment who receive the independent variable. The control group serves as a comparison group.
experimental psychology: is a field of psychology that typically involves laboratory research in basic areas of the discipline.
experimenter effects: when an experimenters behavior or characteristics influence
participants, through subtle cues or signals, that can affect the performance or response of subjects in the experiment.
explicit memory: requires a conscious attempt to recall memory.
external validity: an extent to which research results can be generalised beyond the specific situation studied.
extinction: when the conditioned responses ceases to be produced, with the absence of a
reinforcer or unconditioned stimulus.
extroversion: a dimension of personality, characterised by sociability, the tendency to engage in conversation with others and impulsiveness. Extroversion can be measured on the
Introversion-Extroversion scale of the EPI (Eysenck Personality Inventory).
eyewitness testimony: the study of the accuracy of memory following an accident or
crime, and an exploration of the types of errors commonly made.
Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI): a personality test designed to measure the traits of
extroversion and neuroticism.
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